2008-08-26

Now there's a stylish luxury Lexus RX 350 roaming the streets, licenced in Bermuda as an *Intermediate-size truck*...The car sizes up at approximately 15 1/2 feet long, 6 1/2 feet wide.The length puts it well beyond the maximum length of a Class G private car, however the licence fees for an intermediate truck are less than a private car of such length. Then again, the Sunday licence fees for a truck may make it all square...

And it only seats 5 people, same amount as any other car on the island, heh.

There's a pair of sneakers hanging over the power lines on North Shore Road near Store Hill. Been there for quite a while, actually. I don't know what the safety hazards are for this (like, could a large truck catch the sneakers and yank the line down, for example?), I suppose Belco will deal with it eventually.

Why would somebody tie up a pair of sneakers and hoist them over the power lines, though? Apparently another thing we've copied from our American friends, I searched online for possibilities.

They range from the clowning-around variety:

bullies take them off defenceless kids, then sling them up out of reach as the ultimate taunt

overly puffed-up boys who have just lost their virginity or otherwise passed a sexual milestone look to signal the event to others

graduating seniors mark this transition in their lives by leaving something of themselves behind; namely, their shoes

to the more serious and or possibly dangerous possibilities:

the work of gangs marking the boundaries of their territory (in Bermuda, I don't see that happening, just because the gangs seem to already know each others' "territory")

a location where one can buy street drugs (I wouldn't doubt this, but it seems like a lot of overkill; besides, why tip the cops off?)

creating an informal memorial at the spot where a friend lost his life (possible, but the Bermudian tradition is just to spray paint the roads with messages and hang up bedsheets with messages written across them, so that's maybe a little doubtful)

2008-08-17

They've taken a lot of heat, some of it misdirected (seems like Cablevision was passing the buck, for once), but it would appear that Bermuda Broadcasting has been trying hard to deliver a comprehensive Olympics package in recent days. They've delivered coverage from NBC, CMC and CBC (Canada) over the past few days, which ought to get us better overall coverage than any other country singularly.

Unfortunately today highlighted another misstep from the company's button-pushers. This morning we were shown CMC coverage, which predictably showed track and field. The coverage was live, which was great, however the commentary slanted too much towards the 100m and there was an analysis piece thrown up which interrupted the women's 3000m steeplechase, which promised to be interesting to watch.

Anyway, we were all set for the live 11:30am (Bermuda time) 100m women's finals... then at 11am we're thrown for a loop and sent to NBC which was focusing their morning coverage on a women's basketball match, the USA versus cannon fodder. While I already have my beefs with NBC for choosing to showcase Americans blowing out some other team (in this case New Zealand) over an event that's more competitive, I was stunned that the ZBM monkeys couldn't wait until the 100m live event was over.

I'm assuming that ZBM had preprogrammed the feed switches to something like 1am switch to CBC, 7am switch to CMC, 11am switch to NBC, lather rinse repeat, instead of a station manager making the decisions on which feed to show at what time.

Sucks, but I'm still giving ZBM a B for effort instead of the F that Gazette readers have been blasting over the past few days.

That said, NBC had an Olympics broadcasting package that included not only coverage on its main network but also other channels affiliated with it such as USA and CNBC. With CBC (Canada) also available via cable TV, the prospects of watching the sport of choice for Bermudians was vast once they got past all the docu-drama.

However, ZBM (sorry, no website available), through membership in the Caribbean Media Corporation (formerly CBU) meant that they had the rights to exclusive broadcasting of Olympic coverage. What did that mean?

Our local affiliate, VSB, couldn't broadcast the NBC coverage. Over the weekend they showed CNN Headline News. No plus for cable users since CNN-HN is already a channel available.

Bermuda Cablevision (again, not a group I'm fond of) had to block out USA, CBC (Canada), as well as at times other channels in the family. Several channels lost.

While ZBM's sister station ZFB decided to broadcast BBC World all weekend (again, no benefit to cable users), ZBM which also was slated to broadcast the PGA Championship, rolled with golf so during Sunday afternoon, there was no avenue to show Olympic coverage on TV.

We're at the mercy of CMC commentary instead of NBC, which can be a bad thing sometimes. This morning there was **live** beach volleyball slated on NBC, however CMC cut in to show us **repeats** of swimming that took place the previous night.

Now ZBM from its arrangement gets advertising dollars from Bank of Bermuda, TreeCon and a couple of other sponsors, so you can understand the business sense in getting that exclusivity deal. But it sucks having a downgraded Olympic viewing experience because of it.

2008-08-08

The Premier put together a speech yesterday but apparently only for YouTube. ZBM wound up showing a snippet on their evening news show while VSB wound up broadcasting the clip from the website anyway. Strange that the Premier wouldn't have simply called up the media outlets (including Gov TV) and push out his message, but maybe it was spur of the moment. Not as many people have Internet access as have a television set, but luckily the PLP website posted a transcript of the speech and I suppose the newspapers will be able to post it in its entirety today. Not a big deal in the end, but curious.

As for the content itself, it essentially is a summary of what Government has accomplished in their first session. I wish that each of the 39 passed pieces of legislation was briefed upon, but what can you do. The Premier's also addressed the contentious issue that occurred recently where some of the unions were taking strike action against Government and there was discussions whether or not a government that was led by a labour party was looking after the interests of labour itself.

It's followed up by a not-so-friendly admonition of what he terms the "combined Opposition". Which is, really, the UBP, the Gazette/Mid-Ocean pair and segments of the online community. He brings up a desire for an elevated level of debate, something which we failed to get in any sense of the word, during the election period (here's a quick retort on it). Maybe the next time the House of Assembly is in session we'll see (actually, read about, since it's still not televised on Gov TV or other channel) if the parties concerned can do so.

The Premier informs us that he's contactable via many means including email and Facebook messaging, and I think most people appreciate that the Premier has made himself available in various methods. However I think that there's a section of the community that is frustrated that they can't seem to get straight answers on topics but instead get routed to a press secretary or a canned response, this probably applies to the news media more than most.

He finishes up by bringing up FutureCare, which clearly is the signature landmark of the PLP platform. Providing for seniors and those nearing retirement is an important task that most Bermudians are concerned about.

This speech could only have been topped upon (maybe if ZBM was prepared) by a nice little round table discussion of it a la the election day coverage by those on each side of the political spectrum. Would have been interesting.

2008-08-06

New senator Marc Bean offered this when talking about road safety recently:

"We also need to look at the behaviour of road users.

We are now experiencing the negative effects of that with 11 road fatalities and countless numbers of serious injuries this year.

So, that's a challenge with in itself because no legislation or policies can change people's thinking and behaviour."

Um, (and when I start with 'um', you know I'm about to knock on heads) enforcing legislation and policies is a good way to start,... instead of the current method of pleading for people to be safe then sitting on your hands hoping the situation will go away.

If not, then you're pretty much saying the only way is to let Darwinism take its course and hope that we kill off more people on the roads than we put on.

If Government only now wants to look at the behaviour instead of looking at it over the past five plus years and can't figure out that people drive like crap because there's no police deterrent on the roads then they're plain stupid. Tourists fresh off the cruise ships can see how we drive and say that there's chaos on the streets. Does the Senator think that last year was a calm one by comparison or something?

We have this demerit points system in place now, which seems to be confusing the courts, and people worrying that implementing speed cameras is going to backlog the court system... hm, separate Traffic Offenses Court, perhaps? People don't seem to be proactive and that doesn't apply just to this situation but other ones in the community, unfortunately.

I wish Dr. Froncioni, a man who's been commenting on the state of our roads and drivers for far longer than I, well in trying to inspire Government to take action but don't have much optimism that anything will come out other than more lip service from those in positions to influence legislation and enforcement.

2008-08-05

Apparently this is the 400th post I've made through Blogger, feels kinda good in that nerdy sort of way.

I've recently left the job that I started out of college, an astounding and whopping (in retrospect, of course) 10+ years ago. I wouldn't have guessed it, really... it's not the norm for people out of college to stay with their first employer for so long, I think. I can't think of any of my colleagues or friends who have done so.

I suppose we all have our own individual thoughts and experiences when it comes to staying with Company A for a certain amount of years after graduating, but when it's time to move on, you know it. And when it's past time, you definitely know it, heh.